


Walk Along The Beam

by thejizzler



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Arkham Asylum, Canon-Typical Violence, First Kiss, Grinding, Inappropriate Laughter, M/M, Making Out, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 11:12:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13716471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejizzler/pseuds/thejizzler
Summary: There are no boundaries in Arkham Asylum, and fewer still where Jerome Valeska is concerned.





	Walk Along The Beam

Hell-bent on unpredictability though Jerome Valeska may be, Oswald has learned enough about his tics to know the hand he currently has perched beneath his chin means trouble.

Oswald shifts in place atop his Arkham cot, rolling the frayed edge of the newspaper on his lap between his fingers. He stares down at the words before him, fixing all his energy onto a headline of no importance.

In the blur of his peripheral vision, Jerome’s unmoving smile widens, his fingers moving to rub along his own jaw.

“What?” Oswald sighs, already exasperated and, truth be told, a little fearful (‘trouble’ where Jerome was concerned could range between anything from a long-winded joke with no real punchline to a shiv in the side).

“You ever been kissed before, Ozzie?” Jerome replies, head cocking curiously to one side. The tone of his voice is innocent to match, but that fiendish glint forever in his eyes glows brighter with the question.

Oswald blinks, momentarily taken aback. Then:

“I fail to see how that’s any of your -”

“No, wait, wait wait _wait_ , shh,” Jerome interrupts. He stands on graceful legs to join Oswald on the cot, pressing his finger hard against Oswald’s still-open mouth. “Shush. I have a better question.”

Oswald cranes his neck back, breaking contact with Jerome’s pointer finger. With a second audible sigh, he folds the newspaper still before him and tosses it onto the ground.

He raises his eyebrows, a begrudging invitation for Jerome to continue.

“What I _meant_ to ask was: you ever kissed anybody before?”

“And that’s a different question how, exactly?” Oswald drags two fingers over his eyebrow, warding off the no-doubt coming headache.

“Hm,” Jerome laughs. “You’d _know_ if the answer to either was yes.”

“Wait,” Oswald says, raising his hand as his ears go hot. “Would -”

“No,” Jerome stops him, voice blunt. “Your mommy doesn’t count.”

Oswald drops his hand and his line of sight follows suit. He feels mildly embarrassed, somehow, and fiercely angry, which is no doubt exactly what Jerome wanted. Not a shiv in his side, but close.

“No need to be shy,” Jerome offers, voice full of as much of its usual mirth to sound mocking, but just gentle enough to sound genuine, too.

It only makes Oswald angrier.

“I’m _not_ ,” he snaps, eyes back on Jerome’s, unblinking and defensive.

Jerome stares back at him, smile stretching like he’s waiting for something.

The moment lasts all of fifteen seconds before Jerome is opening his mangled mouth again (another thing about Jerome Oswald is learning: the man is quick to boredom - provocations come quickly with him).

“The thing is, Ozzie,” Jerome begins, tongue at the corner of his mouth. “How can you be King of Gotham if you don’t even have the _cojones_ to lay one on someone?”

“Maybe I’ve never wanted to.”

“Hm. Maybe,” Jerome concedes, and Oswald feels a few seconds’ relief before Jerome’s stare only grows more intense. “But _maybe_ you have.”

Jerome gives a loud, stagy sniff like he’s smelling for something. Oswald shifts uncomfortably, and Jerome sniffs again. He opens his eyes next, crosses his legs with a flourish, and leans into Oswald with a wicked grin, their shoulders pressed together.

“You have. You have, haven’t you? I can smell it on you. You _have_ ,” his voice in sing-song, maddening, and his breath tickling Oswald’s cheek. “You have, you have, you have…”

“Yes! Fine. Once,” Oswald breaks, hot-faced but solaced when Jerome quiets at last. “Only once. Want to know what I did instead? I hit his girlfriend with a train. He shot me and left me for dead in Gotham river shortly after. There. Happy now?”

Jerome blinks. It’s the closest to surprised Oswald has ever seen him look.

Then he laughs.

And laughs.

And _laughs_ \- hand squeezing at Oswald’s shoulder, the other wiping tears from his eyes.

Bristling, Oswald opens his mouth to scold him, or to sigh, or to otherwise voice his disapproval at this most inappropriate of reactions.

“I suppose it...is kind of funny, summed up like that,” is what comes out instead.

This inspires a renewed peal of laughter from Jerome, whose body has sagged backwards onto the cot beneath them with the force of it.

Oswald watches him, mouth twitching, and then, absurdly, he’s laughing, too. It bubbles out of him until his chest and cheeks hurt and he’s gasping for air.

He’s laughing so hard he doesn’t even notice Jerome has stopped until he feels his arm wrapped around his shoulders and hears his words in his ear, hot and delighted:

“Good, that’s it, laugh. After all, any other response would be crazy.”

Oswald drops his head onto Jerome’s shoulder and laughs until he cries.

/ / /

The unexpected intimacy of Oswald’s confession passes without remark, and the two spend dinner as they usually do: ignoring the plates before them and planning their escape from Arkham and beyond.

As always, all eyes are on them, watching reverently, inmate and guard alike.

“You feel that?” Jerome asks, apropos of nothing, gesturing toward the room around them. “The awe? The _worship_? That’s how we’re going to get out of here. That’s how we’re going to tear Gotham limb from bloodied limb.”

“Power,” Oswald breathes, smile devilish.

“You and me,” Jerome agrees, white-gloved finger moving from his own chest to press at Oswald’s collarbone.

Long after Jerome’s dropped his hand back onto the table between them, Oswald can still feel the friction of the touch.

/ / /

Oswald goes to bed feeling inexplicably lighter than he has in days, lighter even than he’d felt before Gotham, before betrayal.

Even the cot beneath him feels softer, more forgiving on his leg, the bedsheet thicker.

Oswald’s half-fantasizing, half-dreaming of revenge (Sofia Falcone’s head on taxidermied display in the Lounge, his knife in Victor Zsasz’s belly, Jim Gordon in Arkham stripes) when he hears it:

“ _Mmmm_ …”

It’s quiet enough that Oswald thinks for a moment he’s imagined it. He shifts in place, eyes fluttering back closed.

But then:

“Ohh. Ohh, _yes_ …”

Louder, now, and quite unmistakably Jerome’s voice. Equally unmistakable: the string of moans that follow, and exactly what they reveal about what Jerome’s doing beneath his own covers.

Oswald’s face burns fire-hot.

He pulls his covers up over his head, a move that does little to muffle the now-incessant gasping noises coming through their shared vent.

It shouldn't be shocking. Even in Arkham, people have needs, and it’s hardly as if brief reigns as King of Gotham have prevented Oswald from walking past the occasional public masturbator on its streets. Still, this feels different, like a violation unfamiliar to Oswald, as full of shame and sickness as he’d felt the first time he’d killed someone long before he came to love it.

Oswald can’t help but to imagine himself in Jerome’s place: touching himself, needy noises spilling out, Jerome listening raptly with nothing to distract him from the reality of Oswald’s base desire.

The thought is humiliating, unbearably so, but Oswald’s hard too now, and he isn’t sure if it’s Jerome’s moans or the sick-hot fantasy of their places swapped that’s done it.

Oswald can’t touch himself, of course, not now, not ever, not knowing the ease with which Jerome would hear him. He closes his eyes again instead, willing all his energy into blocking out this sensory hell around him: Jerome’s gravelly groans and the feel of his own cock growing somehow harder with each.

Jerome is nonetheless where his mind goes, memories in technicolor behind his eyes: _You and me_ \- _You ever been kissed before, Ozzie_ \- _Do you feel that_ \-  

Oswald grits his teeth, hands sweaty as the Jerome of this afternoon and the Jerome of now collide into confusingly erotic cacophony:

__-_ you ever kissed anybody before? _-_ _  
  
__-_ ungh _-_ _  
  
__-_ the cojones to lay one on someone _-_ _  
  
__-_ ohhhh yes _-_ _  
  
__-_ you and me you and me you and me _-_ _

Jerome saves him, finally, by finishing with a gasping cry.

There are a tense few seconds where Oswald struggles to contain his breathing, sure Jerome has somehow heard this internal struggle, but then he hears light snores from the other room and sags with full-body relief.

Eventually, his cock softens untouched in his pants.

He doesn’t sleep a wink all night.

/ / /

“You look tired,” Jerome purrs over breakfast.

There’s a slyness to his voice, and his hand is perched beneath his chin. Trouble.

“What kept you up?” Jerome persists when Oswald doesn’t answer, reaching forward to gulp at his cup of coffee like he doesn’t have a still-full one of his own. “Pea under your mattress, princess?”

Jerome laughs.

“Something like that,” is all Oswald offers, eyes fixed on his plate of theoretically edible mush.

“It’s just as well. Exhaustion suits you.”

Oswald can’t help but to look up at that.

Jerome winks.

Oswald abruptly looks back down, and feels rather than sees Jerome’s grin.

/ / /

Oswald spends the day avoiding Jerome (an endeavor that’d be impossible for anyone else, but is merely difficult for Oswald).

By day’s end, he’s over the odd mood, and sits at their usual table at dinner. Jerome, however, taking the hint (or, more likely, playing a game), walks right past him to join a table of glittery-eyed women who practically fall over themselves to have been so blessed.

Unexpectedly stung, Oswald slams his fist against the table hard enough to overturn his cup of browned water.

He stalks off to his cell without acknowledging anybody, and falls into an immediate but fitful sleep.

/ / /

Blurry-eyed, he wakes with a start to a sound that has no right to feel familiar to him:

“Unghh. Oh...yes,” Jerome groans through the vent.

“Oh, not this again,” Oswald mutters to himself, too tired and coiled with dread to bite it back.

He’s almost disappointed to go unheard, because Jerome barrels on, louder than yesterday (so loud, in fact, that Oswald feels certain someone else nearby must be hearing and suffering with him).

Oswald lies there, hand over his face, willing this to end as he tries not to think of Jerome’s rejection at dinner or how he invited it by childishly ignoring him first, and most of all tries not to think about the visceral fact of Jerome just feet away, only a wall between them, hand around his cock, wetly pumping away…

“Oswald,” moans Jerome’s voice, and then, as if to dispel any doubts about what he’s just heard, “Oh, _Oswald_ …”

Oswald’s blood goes cold.

“That’s _it_ , Oswald, take it, Oswald…”

And then he snaps.

Swinging out of bed, he reaches in his pocket for the two keys to each their cells Jerome had procured for him. He slips out of his and positively thunders into Jerome’s, too hot-faced and overcome with nameless feeling to care about what he’s walking into.

“ _What_ do you think you’re -” Oswald begins, then stops.

Jerome looks up at him, face the picture of innocence, flat on his back in his cot but fully clothed, hands resting behind his head.

“What - what sick _game_ are you -”

Jerome grins and next he’s in hysterics, hands flying to hold his stomach as he writhes with full-body laughter.

“Oh, Ozzie, if you could see your face,” he manages between laughs.

“I am going to _annihilate_ you!” Oswald screams, face contorted with the threat of it.

Still yelling, he leaps atop Jerome, straddling him and barreling punches across his face, technique sloppy and sending flares of pain up his fists, each new peal of delighted laugher from Jerome fueling his attacks until his knuckles and Jerome’s face are bloodied gruesomely and he sags forward with fatigue.

Jerome is still laughing.

“What,” Oswald starts again, and he’s not sure why he’s tearing up, “Is _wrong_ with you?”

“Wrong with _me_ ,” Jerome repeats, cackling. “Look at _you_ , Ozzie. All this fire and fear and _feeling_.”

Oswald’s quiet at that, breathing hard. He is suddenly hyperaware of the fact of Jerome’s body beneath his own, hot and firm.

“All this fire and feeling,” Jerome repeats, eyes menacingly bright. “And you’ve never even -”

Realization strikes Oswald like lightning.

Hands shaking, he grips the collar of Jerome’s uniform, tentative. He stares down at him, breaths coming like gasps, and leans down and kisses him, the tears clinging to his lashes dripping down with the movement.

They’re both still for several seconds, mouths pressed softly together. Jerome’s lips are stiff, the feel of them profoundly strange even without Oswald having anything to compare them to.

Jerome’s lips finally part beneath his and then his hands wrap around Oswald’s waist, gripping hard enough to hurt. He turns his face from Oswald’s mouth, angling his own near Oswald’s ear. The blood-slick slide of it across his face makes Oswald shiver.

“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” Jerome asks, the hardened edges of each word sending tingles down Oswald’s neck.

Oswald’s only response is a soft whimper.

“Okay,” Jerome says, understanding. “My turn.”

And just like that, Oswald is being flipped roughly onto his back, hands pinned over his head and Jerome grinning down at him, face victorious even as it shines still with blood.

Oswald doesn’t have a moment to catch his breath before Jerome’s lips are on his again, more forceful this time, his tongue sliding with confidence into Oswald’s mouth and bringing the taste of iron with it.

Oswald moans, lips melting further open, his wrists breaking free of Jerome’s grip to _feel_ , palms and fingers skirting over the musculature of his shoulders, forearms, the swell of his chest and the dip of his waist.

Jerome smiles into the kiss, and grinds his hips down into Oswald’s, laughing suddenly.

“Maybe a little hard after all, hm?” he asks.

Oswald feels the nauseous beginnings of mortification but then he feels something more: Jerome, hard too, pressing insistent against his hip, and Oswald laughs with the relief of it, the giddy freedom of finally knowing what it is to be wanted.

Blinking back more tears, Oswald wraps his arms around Jerome, squeezing him down harder against him.

“I should probably go back to my cell now,” Oswald whispers, the pang of regret the sentence brings alleviated by the unspoken promise of tomorrow night.

“Dirty tease,” Jerome chides, but Oswald can hear his smile. “Okay.”

Jerome moves onto his side, and Oswald immediately misses the warmth of him. He gets up anyway, leaving Jerome’s room with a sly smile and heading back to the cool solitude of his own cell and cot.

He’s tucked the covers up beneath his chin when the sounds of Jerome filter in, caressing the air, welcome this time. They bring a warmth that Oswald’s scratchy covers could never hope to.

“ _Mmm_ , yes, yes…”

Oswald can still feel the phantom press of Jerome’s hard-on at his hip, groin going hot at the memory and the knowledge that Jerome’s sounds are genuine now.

Oswald slips his own hand over his crotch, grinding up against his palm and moaning with abandon.

“That’s it, Ozzie,” comes Jerome’s voice, low and hot. “Touch yourself. Let go. Come for me.”

Oswald complies with a gasp.

Jerome laughs, then follows suit, crying out, “ _Oswald_.”

The sound of his own name has never felt so sweet.

/ / /

At breakfast, it’s business as usual: Jerome and Oswald seated at their own table as everyone looks on. The cuts and bruises on Oswald’s knuckles and Jerome’s face seem to go unnoticed, as does the fact that Oswald sits a little closer to him than usual.

“I’ll be leaving you on your own today,” Jerome informs him over a loud gulp of coffee. “Gotta do some sneaking ‘round solitary, get some of our pawns in line for…”

Jerome looks around dramatically, then, in a stage whisper:

“Our _great escape_!”

Oswald mirrors his face-splitting grin back at him, but his chest goes tight.

“What?” Jerome asks, surprisingly perceptive as ever.

“Once we’re out,” Oswald asks, something angry hardening his voice, “How long until you betray me, like everyone else?”

Jerome laughs at that.

“My, aren’t we _cynical_ ,” he tuts. Then:

“Maybe I won’t betray you at all.”

Oswald blinks at that, skeptical.

“ _Maybe_...maybe you’ll betray me first.”

Jerome cackles like the thought of that delights him, and it probably does.

“That’s…” Oswald begins, and trails off, unsure how to finish the sentence: that’s _absurd_ , that’s _reckless_ , downright _idiotic_ …

“That’s love, baby,” Jerome finishes for him, hand perching beneath his chin.

“Trouble,” Oswald mutters, half to himself.

Jerome nods, eyes unblinking.

“Anyway. See you tonight, loverboy,” Jerome purrs.

He lands a sloppy kiss on Oswald’s cheek and twirls off with a titter.

“Okay,” Oswald calls after him, cheeks warm.

“Okay,” he repeats in a whisper to himself once Jerome is out of view.

He looks down at the purpled red of his knuckles from last night.

_That’s love, baby_ , he thinks, and lets something between a laugh and a sob consume him as the hungry eyes of Arkham watch.


End file.
